


The Sting

by thewightknight



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Drug Dealing, Gen, Lyrium, criminal activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:41:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new black market lyrium dealer in Kirkwall and their product is tainted.  Aveline enlists Hawke to help her take the dealer down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sting

After Aveline didn’t show up for Wicked Grace two weeks in a row Hawke swung by the barracks. He found her seated at her desk scowling at a pile of reports. The scowl softened slightly when he plopped down in a chair but didn’t go away.

“Everything alright?” That earned a snort. “Well, everything as not-right as it normally is?”

She wanted to tell him, he could tell, but there was guard business and then there was Guard business and this looked like the latter. He could see her struggling with herself. 

“Fine, but be prepared to change the subject the instant someone comes in,” she warned.

“I have a punchline prepared already,” he agreed.

“There’s a new source for black market lyrium.” She paused as there was a flicker of movement outside her door.

“Shall I close it?” Hawke asked, and she shook her head.

“That would make people wonder.” After a moment she continued. “They’ve cut it with something. Something not good. I don’t know what it is but I’ve seen what it does. There’ve been two deaths so far.” 

“And you don’t know where it’s coming from? Want me to sniff around for you?” Hawke offered.

“No, I know exactly where it’s coming from but I can’t prove it. All the evidence leads to Raymonde Lafaille.” She grimaced, and Hawke knew why. The man had shown up in Kirkwall about two years ago, claiming to be a descendant of the man who’d liberated the city from the Qunari during the Storm age. Although his lineage was suspect, his charm and astuteness, as well as his seemingly inexhaustible coffers, had secured him a place among Kirkwall’s elite. Hawke had met him a couple of times and had come away with an unfavorable impression, although he couldn’t have said why. Aveline’s story gave him a reason. 

“Lyrium smuggling. That would explain where his money comes from, at least. Why can’t you prove he’s involved?”

“I’ve got confessions, but not from anyone that’ll carry weight. Lafaille’s got too many friends in high places. I’m sure I could sweat it out of him if I could bring him in but he’s kept his nose clean. And I'm still not one hundred percent sure I've cleared out all the corruption from the guard so I have to be careful because there might be someone on his payroll in my barracks.” She rubbed her forehead, staring down at the report in front of her again. “I’ve got to do something, though. I don’t know if I can take another report like this.” Hawke reached for it and she slapped his hand down, pinning it to her desk. 

“No, Hawke.” He gave her his best mabari puppy eyes and hers narrowed. “No,” she repeated. “I know what you’ll do if you read this and you don’t have the influence to keep yourself away from the noose if you go after him like he’s a Darktown thug.”

She won the struggle of wills. She always did. Implacable Aveline.

“Alright then,” he conceded. “If you think you can break him if you have him, we’ll just have to figure out a way for you to get him.”

Aveline was about to protest, was interrupted when Brennan knocked at her door.

“Captain, sorry to interrupt. There was a question about the watch shifts for Hightown next week?”

Hawke rose. “I should go anyways. But if you miss Wicked Grace again next week I’m going to come in here and pry you away from that desk even if you kill me.”

Brennan tried not to grin as he sauntered out.

*****************

Hawke had an idea. He ran it by Varric first, and when the dwarf approved he approached Isabela, who threw herself into the plan wholeheartedly. Lafaille occasionally would visit the Hanged Man, “slumming it” with some of his cronies. The next time he showed up, they’d strike.

*****************

Aveline looked up in surprise when Sebastian cleared his throat. Starkhaven’s prince in absentia had never visited her office before. He looked a bit sheepish as he spoke. “Aveline. Hawke asked me to come by and insist that you accompany me to the Hanged Man tonight.” Maker’s Breath, what was the man up to? This has better not be some fool matchmaking attempt.

“Hawke did say to remind you that he’d promised to send someone to drag you out of here if it looked like you were going to you miss another Wicked Grace night.” She was about to beg off, but his next words changed her mind. “He also said if it looked like you were going to be difficult – his words, not mine – that I should tell you he thinks he’s solved that problem you were talking about next week.”

Aveline made herself sit, even though she wanted to jump out of her chair and charge out the door. She knew he’d come through. She tried to sound casual, uncertain. “Well, I guess an hour or so wouldn’t hurt.” It came out sounding forced to her ears, and from the look on Sebastian’s face, to his as well. 

“One hour. I’ll hold you to that, and make sure Hawke does as well.” Thank goodness one of them had a silver tongue.

“Alright then.” She straightened her desk and rose. Sebastian gallantly offered her his arm and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. He certainly was a handsome man, that was true, she thought as they made their way out the barracks, but she couldn’t help comparing his brilliant blue eyes to a certain grey-green pair and finding them lacking.

She heard whisperings behind her back as Sebastian led her out. The rumors were going to be flying around the barracks tomorrow. Damn Hawke. Couldn’t he have found a better way? He’d probably done this on purpose to stir things up, in cahoots with Varric. This was going to be fodder for one of the dwarf’s next chapters, damnit.

*****************

Hawke and Varric had taken over their usual corner, with Isabela, Merrill and Anders. A quick sweep of the tavern showed Lafaille and several hangers-on clustered at one end of the bar. They were well into their cups from the look of them.

Hawke had already folded and as they approached Isabela threw in her cards too. The pirate leaned over and whispered something in Hawke’s ear. He laughed and shook his head, and she stood. “Time for another round,” she said.

She started towards over to the bar, stopped and did a double-take, then smiled, slow and sultry, putting an extra sway in her hips as she shouldered her way through his flunkies to Lafaille, pressing herself against his side.

“This just hasn’t been my lucky night. Want to change that?” she purred, trailing a finger down his chest.

“Get away from me,” Lafaille snarled.

“Well, that’s rude. A simple no would have sufficed. Oh, well. Your loss.” Isabela patted his cheek and Lafaille slapped her hand away and then pushed her back. Isabela shouldn’t have fallen, Aveline knew. She was too graceful, too controlled in her movements. But fall she did, landing square on her ass on the floor. 

“Don’t touch me, you cheap whore!”

Conversations sputtered to a halt as customers waited for the pirate’s cutting response. It wasn’t Isabela who spoke, though. 

“If there’s anyone here who’d be more familiar with the cost of female companionship, I’d be greatly surprised.” Hawke smirked, and raised his tankard to the nobleman.

“What’s that supposed to mean, you upstart refugee?” Lafaille retorted.

“Well, if that’s how you treat them, I can’t see how a woman would want to spend any length of time in your company unless you were paying her.” He waited for that to sink in, and then continued, “And I highly doubt any such woman’s time would come cheaply.” 

Lafaille’s face had turned red at Hawke’s first statement. By the time Hawke finished he was almost purple. As the first chuckles rang out he was launching himself at Hawke. Hawke had turned his back to the bar and Aveline knew he had to be aware of the other’s attack but he didn’t react until Lafaille plowed into him, knocking him out of his chair. Hawke managed to take the other man down to the floor with him and they rolled around flailing at each other ineffectively. 

Just as she reached them a glass vial rolled across the floor, stopping in front of her boot. She leaned over, picked it up, and raised it up to the light. 

“Well, what is this?” she asked, knowing already what it was she had in her hand. The wax seal was stamped with the sigil they’d found on other vials of the tainted lyrium during the course of her investigation. She made sure not to look at either Varric or Isabela. 

Hawke had let Lafaille settle on top so it was easy for Aveline to grab him by the scruff of the neck and slam him down on the nearest table. She set the vial in front of his face and watched his eyes widen. “Anyone care to explain where this came from?” She was expecting a denial from Lafaille, sure that the vial was a plant, part of Hawke’s plan. She was surprised when Lafaille groped for his belt pouch, swearing when he found the flap was loose. She batted his hand away, reached into his pouch, and drew out a handful more of matching vials.

“Raymonde Lafaille, you are under arrest for possession of lyrium with intent to distribute outside of the authority of the Chantry and as an accessory to the deaths caused by the distribution of tainted lyrium.” Maker, that felt good.

*****************

Aveline didn’t get any sleep that night. Having caught Lafaille red-handed she was able to get authorization to search his estate. He’d apparently assumed his influence would keep him safe from scrutiny, as he’d made only a minimal effort to conceal the records of his illegal activities. He hadn’t limited himself to drug dealing – there was enough to indict him on slave trading as well. There was just one piece of evidence that didn’t fit.

She stared at the eleven vials in front of her. Ten of them she’d taken off of Lafaille. One of them was the vial that she’d picked up off the floor. It was easy to pick out from the rest. The wax was a slightly different color and the seal on top was rough, almost looking carved instead of stamped. That one by itself would have allowed her to drag Lafaille in for possession. She’d have been able to keep him overnight and she might have been able to get more information out of him, but any conviction would not have been certain. The other ten had gotten her the leverage she needed for the distribution charge and the search. He must have been planning on passing them off to a subordinate for sale, most likely at the Hanged Man. It was those ten vials that cinched the case, but she would never have found them if it weren’t for the eleventh, the one that didn’t quite match.

She’d been careful not to be specific to anyone about how many vials she’d found on Lafaille’s person and she quashed the guilty feeling as she pocketed the outlier before locking the others in an evidence box. She wasn’t withholding evidence, after all. She was one hundred percent certain that that particular vial had never been in Lafaille’s possession.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come say hi over on [tumblr](http://thewightknight.tumblr.com/).


End file.
